Aug
28

How the Email Autoresponder Was Born

Filed Under email autoresponder | 1 Comment 

Today’s email autoresponder is truly a high tech piece of software compared with the original versions. You may be surprised to know that email is older than the internet.

Back in 1965 when people were using mainframe computers they would leave an email in another user’s directory (these computers would have about 100 users) and so when someone else logged in they would see the email left by the previous user. No personal inbox but it still got the message across to the other people.

These mainframe computers were not set up as a network so the email was only viewable by other users of the same computer. No need for your buddy’s email address here. It was basically just leaving an electronic note… enote, rather than email really.

As computers began networking with each other this email thing started to get a little more complicated. You needed an actual address so the email would end up at the right computer.

The actual beginning of email marketing was in 1972 when a guy named Ray Tomlinson decided to use the @ sign would send the email to a particular destination across computer networks and so is the very beginning of email marketing.

So there it is, today’s email history lesson.

Next Page →